To Name
by ncfan
Summary: "To name was to define, to limit. The nameless was without boundaries, but a nameless thing given a name was now defined, its nature set and fixed." Or: Why the Star's daughter has no name.


I own nothing.

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To name was to define, to limit. The nameless was without boundaries, without ends. The nature of the nameless held in itself more than a touch of divinity; limitless as it was, it could be anything from the basest creature of the earth to the brightest star in the sky.

But when a nameless thing was given a name, it was now defined, and its existence was given limits. Its nature was set and fixed, and the named thing now had to behave according to its nature. A cat had to be a cat, a rock had to be a rock, a human had to be a human. A name was a description, and the named thing now had to live up to that description.

A named thing could _change_ its name, but that was so difficult as to be nearly impossible. You see, a name did not just define the nature of the thing, the concept, the idea, the person. It also defined it in the eyes of all the world. To change something's name was to change the way the entire world saw it, thus the act's near-impossibility.

And there was the added complication of the world's diversity of languages. Take "star." In one language, the literal translation for "star" was "ball of fire." In another, it was "light-bearer." In a third, it was "shepherd of the sky." So the nature of the Star was to be a ball of fire, a bearer of light, and a shepherd all at once, with myriad other roles besides.

And then, there was the act of secondary naming, when due to its fluidity, "star" proved to be no name at all.

In their roles as "ball of fire", as "light-bearer", as "shepherd of the sky," there were certain crimes that only a Star could commit. Leading ships off-course, burning the eyes of sailors, setting whole islands ablaze, these were but a few of the crimes that none but a Star could commit, and in the eyes of the gods of the earth, they were monstrous crimes indeed.

The white Star had already been old when he and the yellow Star watched the Lion throw down their brother the blue Star for his crimes. The Lion bound him to fleshy guise and gave him a name to bind him permanently to the idea that he was human, and not a Star. The two Stars watched, shuddering, as Coriakin with his fleshy guise and in his new home committed far more heinous crimes than he had ever committed as a star. He took the bodies of his "subjects" and warped them beyond recognition, to the point that he could easily destroy their peoples' name and supply them with one symbolic of all he had done to them, of how he had bound them to his will.

Surely this was far worse than leading a few ships astray, though the yellow Star argued that it was nowhere near as bad as setting an entire island ablaze. And yet the Lion did not intervene. The white Star supposed that this could have been due to the strange nature of the Lion. You see, the Lion was terrifying, for it was the only thing in earth and sky that was not bound by its name. It was a Lion, and yet it did not have to look like one, and rarely did. It was a Lion, and yet it did not have to behave like one, and rarely did. Perhaps that was why the blue Star's sins had been grievous in its eyes, and yet Coriakin's sins didn't warrant so much as a reprimand. The named and the nameless shared mostly-fixed ideas of right and wrong, but who could say what morality was like for the named who behaved as nameless things did?

The white Star was already old when he watched his brother become Coriakin, and after what seemed like the blink of an eye, he was too old and tired to shine in the sky any longer. He was brought to an island in the great seas, where the Lion, in the guise of a lamb, made him warden of the Hangman's blade, and bid him to rest. The white Star gave himself the name Ramandu, and bound himself willingly to fleshy guise. He took on the form of an aged human man, which amused him, but to rest after so much time spent as a shepherd, it was relief enough that he did not care otherwise.

The yellow Star would never name herself. There were many thousands of years of brilliance left in her; why would she wish to bind herself to fleshy guise? She came to see him at night and lit up the island as though it was day. When the Lion, blowing as a westerly wind, chided her for abandoning her post, she came only at day, and blazed like a second Sun. In vaguely human guise, trailing smokeless flame (that never burned aught which it touched; she was always careful about that), she came to Ramandu's island home, exploring every blade of grass, singing songs of love and power to summon the bricks with which he built his home.

She wove empires with her words for their daughter, before taking them apart, stitch by stitch, to show the lives of everything she had ever watched from the sky above. Ramandu and the yellow Star's daughter was yet another nameless being, though she remained on the island, assuming mostly fleshy guise. The yellow Star had taken their child to the heavens to shine in the sky, once long ago, but brought her back when the child began to weep and pine for the earth and the sea.

"I should have birthed her in the nebulae among stardust," the yellow Star lamented, watching with grief as their daughter called to the birds and the wind and the sea. "Not here, amongst earth and sea. She can not be both a Star and a daughter of the earth."

But for now, that was exactly what their little starling (a term of endearment that both parents were always careful not to make into a name) was. She could blaze brilliantly, wisps of smokeless flame trailing behind her, and yet she bore fleshy guise and loved to swim in the ocean. At times, the Lion could come in the guise of a kitten and roll in the sweet grass with her.

The little starling loved the earth and wound never be content to _just_ be a Star. She was as much a daughter of the earth as the sky, and Ramandu knew that the day would come when his child would long to walk the earth and look upon the tales it had to tell. Her eyes grew bright with curiosity when her mother or one of the other Stars came down from the sky to tell her tales of the earth. Surely she would eventually wish to look on its wonders as well.

"There is something you must understand, my little starling," he said to her, one day at dawn, "if every you wish to venture into the world."

The Sun washed her skin golden, then set it alight as her Star-hood was left gloriously visible. She stared at him with bright green eyes light up with the inquisitiveness that Ramandu had lost in old age. She was young; she could still feel that sense of wonder. "What is that, Father?" she asked in a little girl's piping voice. Yesterday her voice had been rich and deep; she was experimenting with voices in much the same way as her mother did.

"To name is to define, to limit. To name is to give something boundaries, and a limited set of all the things they can ever be. Never let someone else name you. Never let someone else decide what you are to be; never let someone else exert such power over you. The only name you should ever bear is one you gave yourself."

She stared at him for a moment, taken aback. Ramandu understood; his daughter had gone her whole life without a name and did not understand why she might need one. But understanding came to her as quickly as birdsong, and she nodded.

-0-0-0-

She remembered when the three men came. They asked for her name and she told them she had none. They had been so astonished, and at their astonished faces she longed to laugh.

A Star was she, and yet also a daughter of the earth; Mother said that her love of the earth had made her one of its daughters. Her father had a name, and human form, but that was because he was weary of the sky and ancient beyond words. She who was Star and yet earth's daughter had a body of flesh, but what use had she for a name? Among the Stars, names were given only to the words of criminals and to those too weary to shine in the sky any longer, who would fly apart without names. To name was to limit. As she was, she was boundless. Why seal up her spirit into the concept of a name?

But… She did long to see the world.

Her mother and the host of the Stars descended form the sky to tell her all their tales. She had been fed with stories since earliest childhood, of all the wonders of the world, from the dawn of time onwards. The little starling longed to see it for herself, to walk in those places. When her mother brought her to the sky to shine as a Star, she had wept—not only because of the separation from the earth and the sea she so loved, but because she could _see_ the entire world, and yet she could not touch it.

Nothing she saw or heard tell of would endure forever; that was the fate of mortal-folk, for them and all that they built to return to the dust, living on only in stories. So much had already receded into the darkness of oblivion not recorded by history. Why let more of it pass away before she could see it?

If she was a daughter of the earth, then the starling needed to come to know her earthly mother. And she was not like her father, who was bound to this place. She was not like her father, who consumed the fruit of phoenix-fire to restore his youth and Star's radiance, dependent on the phoenix who brought them.

A ship came bearing a young king. He asked her for her name, and she told him she had none.

"I could give you one," he said to her, his eyes shining with hope.

She laughed at him.

Why would she ever give him such power over her?

But when she told him that she longed to see the world, he said that he could take her to see it in its entirety. That offer, she accepted.

To be a daughter of the earth, she must name herself, as only she could do, and bind her spirit to fleshy guise. Perhaps, somewhere in the wide world, she would find what there was that could bring a name to her lips.


End file.
